Analyze Azure DevOps Data in R via JDBC

Access Azure DevOps data with pure R script and standard SQL on any machine where R and Java can be installed. You can use the CData JDBC Driver for Azure DevOps and the RJDBC package to work with remote Azure DevOps data in R. By using the CData Driver, you are leveraging a driver written for industry-proven standards to access your data in the popular, open-source R language. This article shows how to use the driver to execute SQL queries to Azure DevOps and visualize Azure DevOps data by calling standard R functions.

Install R

You can match the driver's performance gains from multi-threading and managed code by running the multithreaded Microsoft R Open or by running open R linked with the BLAS/LAPACK libraries. This article uses Microsoft R Open 3.2.3, which is preconfigured to install packages from the Jan. 1, 2016 snapshot of the CRAN repository. This snapshot ensures reproducibility.

Load the RJDBC Package

To use the driver, download the RJDBC package. After installing the RJDBC package, the following line loads the package:

library(RJDBC)

Connect to Azure DevOps as a JDBC Data Source

You will need the following information to connect to Azure DevOps as a JDBC data source:

• Driver Class: Set this to cdata.jdbc.azuredevops.AzureDevOpsDriver
• Classpath: Set this to the location of the driver JAR. By default this is the lib subfolder of the installation folder.

The DBI functions, such as dbConnect and dbSendQuery, provide a unified interface for writing data access code in R. Use the following line to initialize a DBI driver that can make JDBC requests to the CData JDBC Driver for Azure DevOps:

driver <- JDBC(driverClass = "cdata.jdbc.azuredevops.AzureDevOpsDriver", classPath = "MyInstallationDir\lib\cdata.jdbc.azuredevops.jar", identifier.quote = "'") 

You can now use DBI functions to connect to Azure DevOps and execute SQL queries. Initialize the JDBC connection with the dbConnect function. You can connect to your Azure DevOps account by providing the Organization and PersonalAccessToken.

Obtaining a Personal Access Token

A PersonalAccessToken is necessary for account authentication.

To generate one, log in to your Azure DevOps Organization account and navigate to Profile -> Personal Access Tokens -> New Token. The generated token will be displayed.

If you wish to authenticate to Azure DevOps using OAuth refer to the online Help documentation for an authentication guide.

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Azure DevOps JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

java -jar cdata.jdbc.azuredevops.jar

Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)

Below is a sample dbConnect call, including a typical JDBC connection string:

conn <- dbConnect(driver,"jdbc:azuredevops:AuthScheme=Basic;Organization=MyAzureDevOpsOrganization;ProjectId=MyProjectId;PersonalAccessToken=MyPAT;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;")

Schema Discovery

The driver models Azure DevOps APIs as relational tables, views, and stored procedures. Use the following line to retrieve the list of tables:

dbListTables(conn)

Execute SQL Queries

You can use the dbGetQuery function to execute any SQL query supported by the Azure DevOps API:

builds <- dbGetQuery(conn,"SELECT Id, BuildNumber FROM Builds WHERE Reason = 'Manual'")

You can view the results in a data viewer window with the following command:

View(builds)

Plot Azure DevOps Data

You can now analyze Azure DevOps data with any of the data visualization packages available in the CRAN repository. You can create simple bar plots with the built-in bar plot function:

par(las=2,ps=10,mar=c(5,15,4,2))
barplot(builds$BuildNumber, main="Azure DevOps Builds", names.arg = builds$Id, horiz=TRUE)

👁 A basic bar plot. (Salesforce is shown.)